Dept of Health

Department of Health

Check the new WhoseFlorida for updates

Promotes the health of all residents and visitors in the state:

	Prevention of communicable and non-communicable diseases
	Epidemiological studies to determine trends or patterns
	Research into disease causes and prevention
	Promotes health and elimination of health risks
	Regulatory functions to ensure our health, safety and well being
	develops the state health plan - assessing programs, costs, and recommending changes

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DOH regularly disregards its own disciplinary and grievance regulations, policies, and procedures, using these processes as manipulative tools to manage dedicated employees who come forward and speak up in an attempt to improve the agency... more 11/23/03

Presentation of Florida's Vaccination Plan 1/27/03

News Clips updated 06/22/04

Pesticide Wars or "Service First" - Shafey trial -- disposition

Employee email to Gov

Violence Prevention

Check the water quality at the beach

News Clips:

(news clips have not been kept updated - check archives)

Warnings posted at Collier beaches -- High bacteria levels were found in the water around three Collier public beach access areas.- Health warning signs stood between beachgoers and the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday after a second day of high bacteria readings at three local beaches. Collier County health workers posted warning signs near the surf's edge at the beach access to Vanderbilt Beach, at Horizon Way in Park Shore and at Central Avenue. Tests at the Naples Pier showed that high bacteria levels earlier this week had returned to safe levels. A health worker pulled more water samples from the three warning areas Thursday morning. 9/7/02

Department of Health stress risk of eating raw oysters
TALLAHASSEE — With the continuously warm temperatures in the state, the Florida Department of Health Wednesday is warning consumers of the risks of eating raw oysters. Officials said the risk of vibrio vulnificus, a bacteria commonly found in oysters and in the warm waters off the Gulf of Mexico, is low for healthy people but can be deadly for those with certain health conditions. 8/1/02

Amoeba likely won't hurt swimmers
Alachua County's Health Department director says people shouldn't be afraid to go in the water despite the death of a boy from a rare amebic brain infection he contracted while swimming in an Orlando-area lake a week ago. 7/27/02

Amoebas attack boy, 12, in lake
The Oviedo swimmer has a brain infection caused by organisms in lakes, doctors said.-- "If we wanted to avoid all potential exposures to this organism, we would have to close all bodies of water in the state of Florida," said Dr. Steven Wiersma, state epidemiologist with the Florida Department of Health in Tallahassee. "That's just not possible."---
Health officials say people are more likely to get infected if they swim near the lake bottom, disturb the soil where the organism lives, or take in a lot of water through their noses. 7/25/02

State enacts emergency rule to ready for smallpox attack
TALLAHASSEE — The state Department of Health has enacted an emergency rule that gives doctors continuing education credits toward license renewals for taking a bioterrorism course. "It is imperative that physicians are aware of uncommon diseases that may be due to bioterrorism as well as how and to whom they need to report them," the state's chief health officer, Dr. John Agwunobi, said Thursday. 5/17/02

Scaring up a bill on emergency powers
Worries about a smallpox outbreak leads to legislation for vast emergency powers....And the next time it happens in Florida, a bill now before the governor would allow health officials to quarantine, vaccinate and treat people against their will. 5/17/02

Shrinking fees may harm nursing home care
Unless Congress acts by Oct. 1, nursing homes will face a $3 billion cut in Medicare payments.

Health agency loses leaders -- Chiefs leave jobs at crucial time for department -- Florida's agency charged with safeguarding public health is losing most of its top officials, even as the hurricane season kicks into full swing and concerns escalate over the West Nile virus 8/3

High rates of abuse reported
TAMPA - Florida's nursing homes have higher than average rates of abuse, with more than one-third being cited for incidents where residents were mistreated, a Congressional study has found.

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DOH regularly disregards its own regulations

The Florida Department of Health (DOH) regularly disregards its own disciplinary and grievance regulations, policies, and procedures, using these processes as manipulative tools to manage dedicated employees who come forward and speak up in an attempt to improve the agency. This fact is clearly presented in these articles on Dr. Omar Shafey:
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm?ID=4691 ;
http://www.getipm.com/government/shafley.htm ;
http://www.cssa-inc.org/_unify/malathion.htm ; http://www.beyondpesticides.org/infoservices/pesticidesandyou/Spring%2000/Around%20the%20Country.pdf ; http://gainesvillesunarchives.colony1.net/sunarchives/public_html/opinion/edits/04-07-00edit1.shtml ; http://www.oalj.dol.gov/public/WBLOWER/decsn/00caa19a.htm ; and the fact that DOH settled his lawsuit all but confirms the truth of his allegations.

Apparently, the fact that articles about Dr. Shafey's case were circulated globally, informing people around the world of DOH's questionable personnel practices, state officials were not at all fazed. Back home it was business as usual. Check out the story of Cindy Moore, a Nursing Supervisor at Duval County Health Department. Ms. Moore was targeted and fired after reporting serious irregularities in clinic operation. Find her story at:
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/082003/met_13319817.shtml , http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/082103/met_13329236.shtml ,
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/091003/met_13493202.shtml ,
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/102503/met_13874467.shtml .

According to these articles, Ms. Moore won her whistle-blower lawsuit, but will apparently ultimately lose her job because she falsified her application for employment by leaving off two jobs that might have impacted negatively on her chances to be hired. Most of us have one or two of those we would like to forget. The fact that Ms. Moore chose to leave these off her application does not change the fact that the problems she reported were real, or that she won her lawsuit because DOH acted illegally. It is unfortunate that, by doing so, she gave DOH ammunition to take further action against her.

DOH settled with Dr. Shafey for an "undisclosed amount", and Ms. Moore won an award of attorney's fees amounting to somewhere around $100,000. I believe it is a "matter of public concern" that DOH can carry on in this way with impunity, silencing employees out of fear of retribution, and costing taxpayers huge amounts of money to defend itself when a courageous few stick to their principles and openly express their concerns.

I experienced similar treatment at DOH, and was ultimately fired on a pretext. Please print my name and e-mail address. I want to hear from others who share these same concerns or who believe they have experienced the same treatment at the Florida Department of Health, in hopes of making improvements. Thanks.

Barbara Taylor, BarbaraSTaylor@cs.com

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Dr. Shafey v. Florida Dep't of Health

You might want to put an update on your Department of Health page about this
case. The department settled with Dr. Shafey rather than have their dirty
laundry aired in court.
http://www.oalj.dol.gov/public/WBLOWER/decsn/4_00cv445.htm
"This case involves a complaint by Omar Shafey, brought under the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. § 7622; Water Pollution Prevention and Control Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1367; and the Toxic Substances Control Act, 15 U.S.C. § 2622, in which he alleged violations, discrimination and wrongful termination of employment by the Respondents, Sharon Heber, David Johnson, Daniel Parker, and Richard Hunter, individually, and in their official and unofficial capacities, and the Department of Health for the State of Florida. After issuance of the findings of the Regional Supervisory Investigator of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Atlanta, Georgia, the Complainant filed a notice of appeal and requested a formal hearing. A hearing was scheduled to commence on August 6, 2002, at Tallahassee, Florida, before the undersigned Administrative Law Judge."
http://www.oalj.dol.gov/public/WBLOWER/decsn/00caa19a.htm
...bt, 6/21/03

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Presentation of Florida's Vaccination Plan

Here is a presentation by the Dept of Health on
Florida's smallpox vaccination plan. Very disturbing
statements in this document. (Go to page 20 of the
Acrobat file.)
http://www.flsenate.gov/data/committees/Senate/meeting_packets/HC.pdf

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Emily writes: following is an e-mail that I sent to Governor Bush and I have yet to receive a reply.

Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2001 11:56 AM

To: 'fl_governor@myflorida.com'

Subject: web cast

Mr. Bush,

Out of the entire 3rd floor of the Prather Building, only 1 person (that I could find) could access your web cast. Halfway through the web cast we were cut off. Not only was this not adequately planned for the volume the computer server was going to handle, but it made me feel like you really didn't want us to hear what you had to say. In the part I was able to watch, I was not comforted by the fact that you called our current system, the "old system". That implies to me this already is a done deal and that we, as career service personnel, are going to be shafted.

You talk about bonus's and pay incentives for hard working employees, but we can't get a pay raise now for doing more than our share of the work. I am a hard working employee and I do my job very well. I don't see any of that money. I don't see a pay grade upgrade that I deserve. I see people who don't do half of what I do make a LOT more than me.

I agree that state government should be redone. I agree that there is a LOT of waste. I don't agree with how you have gone about "correcting" that problem. I don't see you holding an open forum for state workers where we could all have access and talk directly with you. I didn't see you broadcasting your web cast on satellite to ensure ALL state employees could here what you have to say. I haven't heard a definite number of the people you have basically fired when working for your %25 cut. I haven't heard or seen you talking to us "grunts". We are the ones that make state government function and we do it without a lot of thanks and appreciation.

I only wish you had though and would think about these things further and talk to the people this is directly affecting (like us "peons") instead of relying on advisors and other politicians to tell you what they think is best. State government is political enough and it's hard enough to do our jobs correctly and efficiently without someone blowing smoke at us and scaring us about losing our jobs.

Thank you for your time and now I am going to finish my lunch.

Emily ... Tallahassee 4/11/01

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This is a new area of the health department and is yet another service Floridians hope will not be lost under the "Florida Bush" plan...
Violence Prevention:

Promotes Violence Prevention in our communities by working with youth in the schools, in the community centers, by training health care givers how to look for signs of abuse in its employees and clients, showing people who to turn to in time of need, teaching mediation techniques to employees and the community, promoting better ways to deal with stress-worry-anger...
...Mithra 4/9/01

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